Hey DanDare, I've been wondering whether my own story has revealed that I'm just not cut out to be on the front line anymore. I think the reason the idea of post-theism appeals to me is that it doesn't target that small group of theists (I'd go as far as call them Alpha-Theists) and, instead, like giving medical aid, it goes out to where the help is most useful, i.e. children, young people and pretty much any who will listen. The tough work is employing effective strategies in a concerted manner.

And as you say, there's always the potential for future audiences to gain insight from any debate/argument/conversation we might have with an Alpha-Theist.

re Labels, let me apologise; but I don't know exactly why this is a sore point. Although it seems a human need to apply labels to everything - and it makes sense -, I'm certainly not overly constricted by them. For example, running through my head now, some dialogue appears.

One: How's it going, mate.

Two: I just picked up a bargain. Check it out.

One: A table?

Two: Oh, mate; this is not a table.

One: Looks like one to me.

Two: Sure, it looks like a table, but this is early Victorian, solid oak - just look how beautifully it's carved and finished. What you see here is the intimate union between man and nature.

One: I see.

PT
PS: I'll delve a little deeper into my psyche and see if there's something more I can improve.

re Labels, let me apologise; but I don't know exactly why this is a sore point. Although it seems a human need to apply labels to everything - and it makes sense -, I'm certainly not overly constricted by them. For example, running through my head now, some dialogue appears.

One: How's it going, mate.

Two: I just picked up a bargain. Check it out.

One: A table?

Two: Oh, mate; this is not a table.

One: Looks like one to me.

Two: Sure, it looks like a table, but this is early Victorian, solid oak - just look how beautifully it's carved and finished. What you see here is the intimate union between man and nature.

One: I see.

PT
PS: I'll delve a little deeper into my psyche and see if there's something more I can improve.

Think if it like this, (or not if you prefer)
The name table is ok. It's only when we start labeling tables as dining or coffee or outdoor or red or big or ugly or artistic, and then being unable to see ourselves eating dinner off the "office" table because that's not what it does, that the labeling limits not just ourselves, but the table as well. It's possibilities are suddenly small because of the way we see it.
But this could all be fishie brain having far too much empathy for tables.
They're furniture too.

Mjt, yeah, I agree. I think, perhaps, part of my "coming out" had a lot to do with defining and discarding labels, and still does.

We all have our own learning and understanding that we have grown up with. Often it needs to be unpicked, unravelled and learnt all over again.
It can be time consuming and hard and often confronting.
It's on going.
The world moves on and sometimes the best we can do is try to keep up.

Atheism is 'not theism', and you can quite comfortably be atheist without ever needing to argue with theists.

Post-theism is the position that the entire paradigm of theism/atheism is obsolete, a rejection of this binary position, mostly because atheism lends some element of credulity to theism by having a word to reject it unlike how we don't have words to reject all the other bullshit we don't believe in.

Now, from either of those positions, you might develop a need to wrangle with theists, or consider the important of human psychology and welfare, but neither are intrinsic to these positions.

The meaning of words can change, of course, but they change throughout a group not on an individual basis, or else we'd rapidly be unable to communicate with each other.

Perhaps the best way to explain the problems with this is to quote Lewis Carrol's version of it with Humpty Dumpty.

Quote:

'And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!'

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. 'They've a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they're the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That's what I say!'

'Would you tell me please,' said Alice, 'what that means?'

'Now you talk like a reasonable child,' said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. 'I meant by "impenetrability" that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don't mean to stop here all the rest of your life.'

'That's a great deal to make one word mean,' Alice said in a thoughtful tone.

'When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.'